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Detection complicated by popularity of gluten-free diet among many who don’t have illness

Celiac disease is common but mostly goes undiagnosed, say Canadian nutrition researchers who studied the blood work of nearly 3,000 people.

For those with celiac disease, eating gluten triggers an immune reaction in the small intestine that, over time, causes signs of damage that can be measured in the blood. Symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, anemia and weight loss can result.

Ahmed El-Sohemy, a professor of nutritional science at the University of Toronto, wanted to see whether celiac disease results in subpar nutrition because of poorer absorption of vitamins and minerals. Iron deficiency, for example, can cause fatigue; too little vitamin C can lead to bleeding gums; and a shortage of calcium and vitamin D can cause brittle bones.

But to find out, he needed Canadian data on the frequency of undiagnosed celiac disease.

To that end, El-Sohemy and his colleagues checked blood samples from more than 2,800 individuals in Toronto. One group had an average age of 23, and the other 45.

Findings consistent with other countries

Their results bore out findings from other countries, showing celiac disease occurs in about one per cent of the population, the researchers said in Friday’s issue of the journal BMJ Open.

However, the vast majority of people who may have the disease don’t even know it.

“The prevalence of it being undiagnosed is incredibly high: 90 per cent,” El-Sohemy said in an interview with CBC News.

This too is consistent with what’s been reported in other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., the researchers said.

“What I guess was a little bit surprising is just how common [undiagnosis] still remains given that gluten-free started becoming popularized well over a decade ago,” El-Sohemy said.

Info ‘essential’ for health care planning

Celiac disease has a strong genetic component. About 30 per cent of the population has the version of a gene needed to develop celiac disease, but that alone doesn’t mean an individual will develop it, he said.

Estimating the frequency of celiac disease in the Canadian population is important, said Dr. Maria Ines Pinto Sanchez, a physician specialist in gastroenterology and nutrition at McMcaster University’s celiac clinic. She was not involved in the study.

“This [study] will give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem in our country, and is essential for health care planning.”

Studies in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, North Africa and South Asia also suggest about one per cent of people are positive for celiac disease based on blood tests for antibodies.

Gastroenterologists say diagnosing celiac disease can be difficult in part because symptoms such as fatigue are common in many other medical conditions.

There are two antibody tests to measure markers in the blood to evaluate someone for celiac disease.

Celiac disease is a genetic autoimmune disease in which people are unable to fully digest certain proteins from wheat.
The partially digested products that remain trigger inflammation and can damage the lining of the small intestine.
(Health Canada)

“It is very important to highlight that blood samples and biopsies to confirm celiac disease should be tested while the patient is consuming gluten, to prevent false negative results,” Pinto Sanchez and clinic co-director Dr. Premysl Bercik said in an email. “A great proportion of the population is following a gluten-free diet even though celiac disease was not confirmed, which makes the diagnosis difficult.”

A biopsy of the duodenum, the first section of the small intestine, is the gold standard to confirm the diagnosis.

False positives can occur, for instance, in people who have other autoimmune disorders, said Dr. Sheila Crowe, a Canadian professor of medicine working in the gastroenterology division at the University of California, San Diego.

“We call that latent celiac disease,” Crowe said in an interview. “This study does not differentiate whether they have latent celiac disease or actually have celiac disease.”

Nonetheless, Crowe called the study interesting and important for raising awareness.

Researchers will need to conduct studies in other provinces to clarify whether or not the findings are representative of the whole country.

El-Sohemy also points out that gluten-free foods are more expensive, and in some cases less nutritious, than their gluten-containing counterparts, and he worries that some people are spending money needlessly.

One potential conflict of interest in El-Sohemy’s research is that he is the founder and chief scientific officer of Nutrigenomix Inc., which provides genetic testing for nutritional issues, including gluten intolerance.

The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

IT’S easy to make fun of people in big cities for their obsession with gluten, or chia seeds, or cleanses.

But urbanites are not the only ones turning away from the products created by big food companies. Eating habits are changing across the country and food companies are struggling to keep up.

General Mills will drop all artificial colors and flavors from its cereals. Perdue, Tyson and Foster Farm have begun to limit the use of antibiotics in their chicken. Kraft declared it was dropping artificial dyes from its macaroni and cheese. Hershey’s will begin to move away from ingredients such as the emulsifier polyglycerol polyricinoleate to “simple and easy-to-understand ingredients” like “fresh milk from local farms, roasted California almonds, cocoa beans and sugar.”

Those announcements reflect a new reality: Consumers are walking away from America’s most iconic food brands. Big food manufacturers are reacting by cleaning up their ingredient labels, acquiring healthier brands and coming out with a prodigious array of new products. Last year, General Mills purchased the organic pasta maker Annie’s Homegrown for $820 million — a price that was over four times the company’s revenues, likening it to valuations more often seen in Silicon Valley. The company also introduced more than 200 new products, ranging from Cheerios Protein to Betty Crocker gluten-free cookie mix, to capitalize on the latest consumer fads.

Food companies are moving in the right direction, but it won’t be enough to save them. If they are to survive changes in eating habits, they need a fundamental shift in their approach.

The food movement over the past couple of decades has substantially altered consumer behavior and reshaped the competitive landscape. Chains like Sweetgreen, a salad purveyor, are grabbing market share from traditional fast food companies. Brands such as Amy’s Kitchen, with its organic products, and Kind bars are taking some of the space on shelves once consumed by Nestlé’s Lean Cuisine and Mars.

For the large established food companies, this is having disastrous consequences. Per capita soda sales are down 25 percent since 1998, mostly replaced by water. Orange juice, a drink once seen as an important part of a healthy breakfast, has seen per capita consumption drop 45 percent in the same period. It is now more correctly considered a serious carrier of free sugar, stripped of its natural fibers. Sales of packaged cereals, also heavily sugar-laden, are down over 25 percent since 2000, with yogurt and granola taking their place. Frozen dinner sales are down nearly 12 percent from 2007 to 2013. Sales per outlet at McDonald’s have been on a downward spiral for nearly three years, with no end in sight.

To survive, the food industry will need more than its current bag of tricks. There is a consumer shift at play that calls into question the reason packaged foods exist. There was a time when consumers used to walk through every aisle of the grocery store, but today much of their time is being spent in the perimeter of the store with its vast collection of fresh products — raw produce, meats, bakery items and fresh prepared foods. Sales of fresh prepared foods have grown nearly 30 percent since 2009, while sales of center-of-store packaged goods have started to fall. Sales of raw fruits and vegetables are also growing — among children and young adults, per capita consumption of vegetables is up 10 percent over the past five years.

The outlook for the center of the store is so glum that industry insiders have begun to refer to that space as the morgue. For consumers today, packaged goods conjure up the image of foods stripped of their nutrition and loaded with sugar. Also, decades of deceptive marketing, corporate-sponsored research and government lobbying have left large food companies with brands that are fast becoming liabilities. According to one recent survey, 42 percent of millennial consumers, ages 20 to 37, don’t trust large food companies, compared with 18 percent of non-millennial consumers who feel that way.

Food companies can’t merely tinker. Nor will acquisition-driven strategies prove sufficient, because most acquisitions are too small to shift fortunes quickly. Acquired brands such as Annie’s Homegrown, Happy Baby and Honest Tea account for 1 percent or less of their buyers’ revenues. Moreover, these brands, along with their missions and culture, tend to get quickly lost in the sales and marketing machine of big food companies. It is easy for them to get orphaned.

For legacy food companies to have any hope of survival, they will have to make bold changes in their core product offerings. Companies will have to drastically cut sugar; process less; go local and organic; use more fruits, vegetables and other whole foods; and develop fresh offerings. General Mills needs to do more than just drop the artificial ingredients from Trix. It needs to drop the sugar substantially, move to 100 percent whole grains, and increase ingredient diversity by expanding to other grains besides corn.

Instead of throwing good money after bad for its lagging frozen products, Nestlé, which is investing in a new $50 million frozen research and development facility, should introduce a range of healthy, fresh prepared meals for deli counters across the country.

McDonalds needs to do more than use antibiotic-free chicken. The back of the house for its 36,000 restaurants currently looks like a mini-factory serving fried frozen patties and french fries. It needs to look more like a kitchen serving freshly prepared meals with locally sourced vegetables and grains — and it still needs to taste great and be affordable.

These changes would require a complete overhaul of their supply chains, major organizational restructuring and billions of dollars of investment, but these corporations have the resources. It may be their last chance.

Hans Taparia, an assistant professor at the New York University Stern School of Business, co-founded and partially owns an organic food business. Pamela Koch is executive director of the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education, and Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 8, 2015, on page SR4 of the New York edition with the headline: Real Food Challenges the Food Industry.

Jack Bezian of Bezian’s Bakery in Santa Monica, California, has an eye-catching sign behind his loaves of bread, stating: “Roman soldiers had only sourdough bread to get protein.” But this is only part of the story. For those who suffer from gluten intolerance or celiac disease, Jack’s naturally fermented bread is surprisingly easy to digest. Interestingly, several studies have also found true sourdough to be well tolerated by individuals sensitive to gluten.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder triggered by consuming the protein in wheat, barley and rye – otherwise known as gluten. If a celiac ingests this protein, the immune system mistakenly attacks the villi in the small intestine, causing a cascade of health issues, including leaky gut syndrome, malnutrition, lactose intolerance, osteoporosis, neurological disorders and cancer.

Under normal circumstances, it’s necessary for individuals with a gluten sensitivity to completely eliminate the troublesome offender from their diet. However, two small studies involving sourdough bread give hope to the millions who believe they need to swear off gluten containing grains forever.

A European study of 17 celiac patients who consumed sourdough bread had an intriguing outcome. When the volunteers ingested a specialized sourdough containing lactobacilli culture, none of the participants exhibited any negative effects of intestinal permeability. The bread was made with 30 percent wheat flour and a combination of oat, millet and buckwheat flours. The researchers concluded, “These results showed that a bread biotechnology that uses selected lactobacilli, nontoxic flours, and a long fermentation time is a novel tool for decreasing the level of gluten intolerance in humans.”

Similarly, another study found that “individuals with celiac disease who ate specially prepared sourdough wheat bread over the course of 60 days experienced no ill effects,” writes Tasha Gerken in “Celiacs Can Say Yes to Sourdough Bread.” Read more about the testing protocol here.

Research published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology offers a possible explanation. Scientists discovered that, when wheat bread is thoroughly fermented, gluten content drops from approximately 75,000 ppm to 12 – a level technically considered gluten-free.

Not all bread is created equal

The key is a long fermentation process – up to a month with bakers like Jack Bezian. When bread is leavened naturally with lactobacilli, it transforms wheat flour into a nutrient-rich edible which is abundant in vitamins B, C and E, bioavailable protein, fatty acids and minerals. With true sourdough, bone and tooth destroying phytates are minimized as well.

In the post “Top 10 Reasons to Eat Real Sourdough Bread, Even if You’re Gluten Intolerant” Jack relates a story about how a celiac customer tried his traditional sourdough bread and discovered he could eat it without any adverse reactions.

Jack believes it’s important to knead the bread thoroughly and allow it to ferment for a lengthy stretch of time. There are no shortcuts here, but if you have an issue with gluten and miss the joy of bread, a true sourdough may be the answer.

Regular readers of MindBodyGreen are aware that a process in our bodies called inflammation is involved in many aspects of human health and disease. For example, you may have read that a breakfast of Egg McMuffins, sleep apnea, obesity and ultra-exercise are inflammatory, while turmeric, meditation and the Mediterranean diet are anti-inflammatory, and so on. Lost in the search for vitality and longevity is an understanding of what inflammation is and what can be done to tame it. In many ways, inflammation is a Goldilocks process – you don’t want too much or too little, but just the right amount.

When I explain inflammation to patients, I point out that the middle of the word is “flame,” and that it comes from the Latin “I ignite.” Inflammation is a complex process of cells and chemicals in our bodies standing ready to fight infections and other threats, and is a life saver when it’s a controlled reaction to a threat. For example, you may experience inflammation when you’re working on your deck and get a wood splinter. Maybe a mosquito lands on your back and enjoys some of your blood (hopefully full of fresh green juice!). Maybe you sprained your ankle when your perfect yoga hand stand came crashing down.

Over 2,000 years ago, the signs of acute inflammation were described as including pain, warmth, redness and swelling. This “first responder” wave of healing occurs because cells in the area are surveying their environment all the time with detectors on their surface that act much like radar watching for invaders. These detectors are called pattern recognition receptors (PRR). If a PRR detects something that has a “foreign” structure – a pathogen-associated molecular pattern, or PAMP – it will ring the fire alarm internally in the cell and surrounding blood vessels.

Chemicals begin to pour out that cause blood vessels to dilate (redness, warmth and swelling); others increase the sensitivity to pain, and the next thing you know, your ankle or finger is a hot, red, sore mess. These chemicals attract white blood cells that begin to clean up the area by engulfing foreign proteins. Enough white blood cells clumped together is called pus. After a period of increased blood flow, helping to dilute the irritant and bringing fighters to the scene, other factors that promote clotting are released and work to balance and decrease the blood flow. This is what happens when you scrape your knee and it weeps for a while but then scabs over.

Some of the star chemicals involved in this process deserve a shout-out. Histamine is waiting to be released when an injury occurs, and causes arteries to expand and leak fluid (think of an antihistamine pill drying up your nose). Interleukins, such as IL-8, come from macrophages (“big eaters” in Greek, ready to swallow substances sensed as foreign) and bring their best friends: white blood cells. The white cells arrive to fight for your recovery because chemical attractants – sort of a white blood cell perfume – are released. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) also is released from macrophage cells, and may produce fever and loss of appetite. Nitric oxide is a gas released by the inner lining of blood cells and can be dumped out to increase blood flow when an injury occurs.

While inflammation is a protector of our health when it’s an acute response, chronic inflammation is a different story. A diverse group of medical illness are believed to be caused in part by chronic activation of the same chemical and cellular processes described above. These include asthma, acne, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and even atherosclerosis of heart arteries. In fact, in 1856 Rudolf Virchow proposed that arterial disease was an inflammation of blood vessels and now, over 150 years later, people who fear heart disease are routinely checked for this process.

So how does a natural, acute response become a chronic condition? Some of the reasons include injury to the gut (leaky gut syndrome) from processed foods, trans fats, sugars, alcohol, gluten and dairy allergies, toxins, ultra-exercise, obesity, inadequate sleep, and excessive stress and anger.

What can you do to keep your balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory reactions in the “Goldilocks” position? There are foods that you can add daily to your meals that cool down inflammation, such as ginger, turmeric, basil and rosemary. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and small amounts of olive oil, can do the same. Avoiding processed foods, dairy, wheat and sugar are also good strategies. Nutritional supplements, such as vitamin D3, omega-3 fish oil, probiotics, turmeric capsules, and boswellia can be helpful. Avoiding toxins such as pesticides and GMO foods by selecting organic products, taking care to choose skin and personal use products that do not contain irritant chemicals, and drinking purified water are solid recommendations. Getting adequate sleep, controlling your weight, and getting regular doses of moderate exercise will help keep you in balance.

Remember, you can use these relatively simple lifestyle choices to keep the flame of inflammation at a low level and not get burned.

(NaturalNews) Jack Bezian of Bezian’s Bakery in Santa Monica, California, has an eye-catching sign behind his loaves of bread, stating: “Roman soldiers had only sourdough bread to get protein.” But this is only part of the story. For those who suffer from gluten intolerance or celiac disease, Jack’s naturally fermented bread is surprisingly easy to digest. Interestingly, several studies have also found true sourdough to be well tolerated by individuals sensitive to gluten.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder triggered by consuming the protein in wheat, barley and rye – otherwise known as gluten. If a celiac ingests this protein, the immune system mistakenly attacks the villi in the small intestine, causing a cascade of health issues, including leaky gut syndrome, malnutrition, lactose intolerance, osteoporosis, neurological disorders and cancer.

Under normal circumstances, it’s necessary for individuals with a gluten sensitivity to completely eliminate the troublesome offender from their diet. However, two small studies involving sourdough bread give hope to the millions who believe they need to swear off gluten containing grains forever.

A European study of 17 celiac patients who consumed sourdough bread had an intriguing outcome. When the volunteers ingested a specialized sourdough containing lactobacilli culture, none of the participants exhibited any negative effects of intestinal permeability. The bread was made with 30 percent wheat flour and a combination of oat, millet and buckwheat flours. The researchers concluded, “These results showed that a bread biotechnology that uses selected lactobacilli, nontoxic flours, and a long fermentation time is a novel tool for decreasing the level of gluten intolerance in humans.”

Similarly, another study found that “individuals with celiac disease who ate specially prepared sourdough wheat bread over the course of 60 days experienced no ill effects,” writes Tasha Gerken in “Celiacs Can Say Yes to Sourdough Bread.” Read more about the testing protocol here.

Research published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology offers a possible explanation. Scientists discovered that, when wheat bread is thoroughly fermented, gluten content drops from approximately 75,000 ppm to 12 – a level technically considered gluten-free.

Not all bread is created equal

The key is a long fermentation process – up to a month with bakers like Jack Bezian. When bread is leavened naturally with lactobacilli, it transforms wheat flour into a nutrient-rich edible which is abundant in vitamins B, C and E, bioavailable protein, fatty acids and minerals. With true sourdough, bone and tooth destroying phytates are minimized as well.

In the post “Top 10 Reasons to Eat Real Sourdough Bread, Even if You’re Gluten Intolerant” Jack relates a story about how a celiac customer tried his traditional sourdough bread and discovered he could eat it without any adverse reactions.

Jack believes it’s important to knead the bread thoroughly and allow it to ferment for a lengthy stretch of time. There are no shortcuts here, but if you have an issue with gluten and miss the joy of bread, a true sourdough may be the answer.

Like this:

Oh gluten, the least trendy protein of our time. As gluten-free has transcended science and exploded into diet fad, scientists increasingly suspect that gluten intolerance—apart from actual celiac disease—doesn’t exist at all. The true culprit could be a group of carbohydrates, including one in wheat called fructan.

A new story from NPR’s Eliza Barclay does an impressive job of summarizing the recent history of gluten research, which you can be forgiven for finding confusing. In fact, Peter Gibson, the very professor behind the first study with major evidence of non-celiac gluten intolerance, published a paper in 2013 that debunked his earlier study. That’s right, the guy who first came up with gluten intolerance has reversed course.

But where are these “gluten intolerance” symptoms—pain, nausea, bloating—coming from if not gluten? Gibson’s 2013 study also put patients on a diet low in FODMAPs, or a group of carbohydrates called fermentable oligo-di-monosaccharides and polyols. Gluten-free diets didn’t help these patients, but a low FODMAP diet did.

Now FODMAPs is a real mouthful, so here’s what the group of carbohydrates include. In wheat, the predominant FODMAP is fructan, but it’s found in other foods, too. “FODMAPs include fructose (found in some fruit), lactose (found in some dairy products) and galactans (found in some legumes),” writes to Barclay.

Gluten sensitivity may not have to do with gluten, but it may not totally be a nocebo affect either. “FODMAP-free,” though, doesn’t really roll off the tongue. [NPR]

Washington State University’s agriculture research and extension facility in Mount Vernon, about an hour due north along the Puget Sound from Seattle, looks at first glance like any recently built academic edifice: that is to say, boring and austere. On the outside, it’s surrounded by test plots of wheat and other grains, as well as greenhouses, shrouded in the Pacific Northwest’s classic gray skies and mist. Inside, professors and grad students shuffle through the long halls, passing quiet offices and labs.

Yet one of those labs is not like the others—or any other that I know of, for that matter. When you look down the length of the room from the back wall, you see two distinct chambers, separated by long, adjoining tables: gleaming chunks of impressive-looking machinery to the left; flour sacks, mixing bowls, a large, multileveled oven to the right. And in place of the vaguely chemical smell of most university labs, you get the rich, toasty aroma of fresh-baked bread.

Mounted on the outer edge of the short wall that divides the two tables, there’s an image of a human brain, with its two halves. “Aha, that symbolizes the lab,” says lab staffer Jonathan McDowell. The left side is the “analytical laboratory, where raw objective data is generated by high-tech machinery,” he says, gesturing to a contraption that measures the protein level in flour. The right side, meanwhile, is the “intuitive laboratory of the artisan baker, where hands and palate are the means of validation.” Taken together, the Bread Lab is like a “unified mind, where science and art coalescence,” he says.

McDowell is a slender, bespectacled, slightly flour-dusted young man in red trousers, black loafers, and V-necked white T-shirt, his face framed by a thick beard and mop of close-cropped dark hair. He looks like he’d fit in better onstage at an indie rock show than at an ag research center in a rural county. Yet he couldn’t be more at home. McDowell is the staff baker here at the Bread Lab, the brainchild of Washington State wheat breeder Stephen Jones, who’s also the director of the Mount Vernon research outpost. Jones believes fervently that grain breeding—the art and science of creating new varieties—has been hijacked by large seed, milling, and baking interests, giving rise to high-yielding but boring varieties geared to the mass production of crappy, and mostly white, bread.

For the last half-century or so, says Jones, wheat has been bred for industrial mills, where it is ground and separated into its three components: flour, germ, and bran. Usually, the flour gets turned into white bread, while the germ and bran—which contain all of wheat’s healthy fats and fiber, and much of the vitamins—go to other uses, including supplements and livestock feed. In most of what we now know as “whole wheat” bread, some—but not all—of the bran and germ are mixed back in.

For Jones, these are inferior products—both in nutrition and taste terms. So he has been working with farmers in the Pacific Northwest to develop wheat varieties that can be milled into flour that’s suitable for being baked directly into bread. And it falls to McDowell—who took over the role of the lab’s baker from Jones himself last year—to show the world that 100 percent whole-wheat bread isn’t just edible, but delicious.

According to Jones and McDowell, low-quality industrial white flours and fast-rising commercial yeasts, along with additives like vital wheat gluten—a wheat product added to give bread structure despite superfast rises—have generated a backlash against bread in the form of the “gluten-free” craze. While people with celiac disease genuinely can’t process the gluten in wheat, they argue, most people actually can. The problem is that most industrial bakeries only allow bread to rise for a matter of minutes—not nearly long enough to let the yeast and bacteria digest all the gluten in the flour, let alone the extra dose in the additives. The result can lead to all kinds of problems in our gut.

McDowell gets philosophical when you ask him about the rise (so to speak) of “gluten-free bread.” In a quiet corner of the lab, he ruminates on the topic. “What has been the staff of life is now perceived as the spirit of disease,” he says. “Symbolically, you can look at bread as a representation of our society through history,” he says. “If you look at gluten as what holds bread together, and you look at bread as what holds our society together, what is ‘gluten-free bread,’ then? Is it not a symbol of our times?” McDowell calls the rush away from bread as it’s commonly made now a “wake-up call” and “opportunity” for bakers to reestablish bread as a healthy, delicious staple. And he sounds genuinely undaunted by the project of doing just that.

Moreover, McDowell and Jones say, wheat that has been bred to be made into white flour doesn’t make very interesting bread—and can be downright unpalatable when people try to make it into a whole wheat loaf. That’s why 100 percent whole-wheat bread has a reputation for being good-for-you but kind of awful—cardboard-flavored and overly chewy. For that reason, even whole-foods enthusiasts like me tend to use at least half white flour when we bake.

The quixotic goals of the Bread Lab, in short, are to rescue bread from gluten-villain status, while simultaneously pushing whole wheat from the hippie margin to the delicious center of the culinary world. (Jones and McDowell aren’t alone in this of course—the food writer Mark Bittman has been experimenting with 100 percent whole wheat as well, as have others.)

I tasted McDowell’s bread at an event last fall—and again during my January trip to the Bread Lab—so I knew he could make spectacular 100 percent whole-wheat bread from a sourdough starter. My question was: Could I do it, under his tutelage, in my home kitchen? I’m a pretty rudimentary home baker. Before this experiment, I had made exactly one 100 percent whole wheat bread loaf before. It didn’t make for very good eating, but could have enjoyed a long career as a garden steppingstone. Nor had I ever successfully baked with sourdough—my one previous effort had failed to rise, and I suspected I had murdered my starter before it ever got a chance to feed on the flour I was offering it.

Before I ended my visit, McDowell insisted on gifting me a small plastic vial of his own special starter (to satisfy the liquid-suspicious Transportation Security Administration gods, he made it into a nearly solid paste by adding lots of flour). He also handed me a bag of freshly ground whole-wheat flour; and a recipe, that he scribbled out on the spot, on lined, yellow paper. I had told him that my most successful previous foray into bread baking had been with the “no-knead” recipe popularized by New York baker Jim Lahey and immortalized for all time by Bittman.

The Lahey/Bittman loaf calls for a dough leavened with a tiny amount of commercial yeast, which is left to rise overnight and then cooked in a tightly covered pot in a blazing-hot oven. McDowell adapted his recipe along those lines.

I’m happy to report that, under McDowell’s direction, I have churned out two fantastic loaves. They had a faint sourness that added a dimension of flavor without being at all shrill or dominant. In the first loaf, I had become paranoid that I had fouled up the process of waking up the sourdough starter. But the bread was delicious—nutty and moist inside with plenty of air pockets, surrounded by a thick, hearty crust—”as good as bread gets,” a bread-savvy friend visiting from Chicago declared. The second one, after I had lavishly fed and cared for the starter, was outstanding, too, but seemed a little denser than the first. Go figure. Living creatures—humans and microbiota alike—are capricious. Here’s Jonathon’s recipe—a perfect thing to try on a rainy or snowy day at home. (It takes six or seven hours, very little of it active, from start to finish, once you get the starter prepped.)

Whole-Wheat Sourdough Bread

Equipment/flour note: This recipe requires a dutch oven—a heavy-duty pot with a tight-fitting lid—because these durable pots capture the steam from the dough to create the thick, blistered crusts you typically only can get from commercial baking ovens. (Dutch ovens can get quite expensive, but for bread-making purposes, my favorite is the relatively affordable cast-iron type.) Also, a cheap digital kitchen scale isn’t absolutely necessary for this recipe—McDowell kindly converted gram weights to cups and tablespoons—but will make the work go a lot more smoothly. Also, please be sure to read the whole recipe before you get started; it requires a few days of planning. As for flour, obviously everyone doesn’t have access (yet) to fresh-ground wheat that’s been carefully bred specifically for whole-grain bread. But mid-sized operations like North Carolina’s Lindley Mills and California’s Community Grains are working with farmers in their regions to produce top-quality whole wheat bread flour products, and are worth seeking out. McDowell says that some Whole Foods outlets offer Community Grains flour ground at the store—a definite win if you can get your hands on it. If you can’t find a regional product, King Arthur’s organic 100 percent whole wheat flour is available nationwide and should “give you decent results,” McDowell says.

First, make or acquire a starter:

“Most artisan bakers would be happy to give you a piece of their levain to inoculate your own starter with,” McDowell says. But he recommends trying to start one from scratch. McDowell says that homemade starters primarily utilize the yeast and bacteria present in the flour itself, but that over time, they acclimate to their particular environment. “Not every location can easily start or sustain one,” he warns, but most can. Here’s how:

3 tablespoons whole rye or wheat flour

Enough water to make what looks like a “thick pancake batter.”

Stir to mix and let it sit out, loosely covered, for 24 hours. Then take 60 grams (1/4 cup) of the starter, discarding the rest, and mix it with 60 grams of water (1/4 cup) and 60 grams (3/8 cup) of flour. Repeat this process every 12 hours for 3 to 5 days. By the time it’s obviously alive—slightly bubbly and smelling distinctly acidic—you’ll have succeeded in creating a levain. You can jump straight to step (b) in the section below with this the new starter and bake with it; or store in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake.

Next, prepare your culture for baking:

When you’re ready to bake, start 24 hours ahead if you’re using a refrigerated starter. You’ll need to wake it up and get it ready to leaven a loaf.

b) Then, take 10 grams (about a tablespoon) of that starter (you can discard the rest), which will have begun to get lively, and mix it with 60 grams flour (about a half cup) and 60 grams water (about a quarter cup).

Let it sit for 12 to 14 more hours. Now you’ll have just enough lively starter for a loaf—a little more than a half cup—plus a bit left over to begin the next batch of starter.

Now, get that next batch going: Scoop out about 10 grams (1/8 cup) of the starter, and add 20 grams of flour (1 1/3 tablespoons) and 20 grams of water (1 1/3 tablespoons). Mix it, and let sit for 3 hours at room temperature, then store in the fridge, covered tightly. Keep it alive by baking every week; or feed it once a week by scooping out 10 grams (1/8 cup) of starter (discarding the rest), and mixing with 20 grams of flour (1 1/3 tablespoons) and 20 grams of water (1 1/3 tablespoons), as above.

Now, finally, make the bread:

Ingredients

580 grams (4 cups) whole wheat flour

506 grams (2¼ cups) water, at room temperature

12 grams (2½ teaspoons) salt

120 grams (½ cup) Starter

Step 1: This is known as the autolyse step. Mix the starter and water together in a large bowl or plastic bread-making tub (see video below—I used a bowl). Add the flour, and mix well. Let sit 20 to 40 minutes.

Step 4: Shape the dough into a round by gently folding it over on itself, leaving a smooth, round top and a seamed bottom. This is known as a boule. Let it rest, covered, 20 minutes.

Step 5: Very gently place the boule, seam side up, into a floured proofing basket for 1.5 to 2 hours. If you do not have a proofing basket, you can take a linen (or fine mesh cotton, but linen is best) cloth, rub plenty of flour into it and place it in a small mixing bowl. Make sure there is ample flour covering all surfaces that the dough will touch, and also be sure that the bowl is deep enough to really shore up the sides of the boule. (I used a bowl-shaped metal colander as my proofing bowl, lined with a well-floured cloth.) About an hour into the proof, preheat the oven to 500 degrees and put the empty Dutch oven, with cover, into the oven, so that it will become blazing hot.

Step 6: Very carefully, drop the boule into the hot Dutch oven, seam side down.

Step 7: Make a few incisions along the top membrane about ¼ inch into the dough’s surface, to help with the loaf expansion. McDowell uses a straight razor. I used a serrated (bread) knife. (I forgot to do this in my second loaf.)

Loaf Two also showed pretty good air pockets.

Step 8: Bake approximately 30 minutes , then remove the lid of the Dutch oven and bake until the boule is a deep brown—10 to 15 minutes more. (You can insert an instant-read thermometer into the loaf—when done, it will be within a few degrees of 212 degrees F).